The Confessions of Saint Augustine

Confessions is the name of a series of thirteen autobiographical books by St. Augustine of Hippo written between 397 and 398 AD. In modern times, the books are usually published as a single volume known as The Confessions of St. Augustine in order to distinguish the book from other books with similar titles such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions. The book tells about his sinful youth and how he converted to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and would be an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1000 years of the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography as it was written in his early 40s and he lived much longer afterwards, during which he produced another important work City of God, however it does provide an unbroken record of his evolution of thought and is the most complete record of any single individual from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work.